


Desire

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Because why write without torturing your characters, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Gen, Humanstuck, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Photographer Dave, Platonic Kissing, Prostitution, Roommates, Sad Backstories, Self-Worth Issues, Threesome - M/M/M, Truth or Dare, Underage Drinking, Underage Prostitution, drunk adults play middle school party games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3971923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allow me to be crude; Dave Strider was born and raised in a whore house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue of Sorts

**Author's Note:**

> I had a need for a prostitution fic (???) so here we are i guess (this currently has no plot or planning ohh god)

Your name is Dave Strider, and you have been a prostitute since the age of sixteen.

It was _not_  your idea, not by a long shot. No, you’d been forced into it, practically _born_  into it. Your mother, a woman you don’t remember but they tell you her name was Roxy, had gotten pregnant with you at seventeen. As soon as her parents found out, they’d kicked her out without a second thought, and she ended up in what you now call home: a building you’ve known all your life as The Doll House.

It’s a bar of sorts, you suppose, but you never interacted with the bar part of it that much. You spend most of your younger years upstairs, where the girls who work here live.

Your mom dies when you are nearly three years old, of what, you don’t know. It doesn’t bother you. You didn’t know her, and as far as you’re concerned, she could have done better. You’re raised instead by two of the girls close to your mom’s age, a slim asian girl with thick black hair named Aradia, and a blonde, slightly chubbier girl named Feferi. You love them very much, and even when they act distant you know they love you too.

You won’t find out until you’re ten years old exactly what kind of place this is. It’s a whore house, a place that takes in young girls with no place to live as long as they allow themselves to be fucked for money. They don’t usually take in boys, (they don’t _ever_  take in boys) but you’re kept here without question. Having been raised in such a place, you don’t find the prostitution as horrifying as you probably should.

Aradia and Feferi teach you a lot. They teach you how to read and write, how to do math, how to navigate the city and plenty of self defense. They teach you how to act when you go downstairs to the bar, how to make your eyes wide and smile brightly and reach into pockets and purses unseen to steal money.

When you’re fourteen, you start actually working downstairs. You have long legs and pale skin and fine, white blond hair, long eyelashes of the same color, and practically no other hair on your body. The girls you work and live with giggle and call you twink and pinch your cheeks a lot, but you don’t know what that means.

Your work uniform is just a masculine version of that of the girl’s. Where they have a short black mini skirt, you have black booty shorts. They have pink high heels, you have red converse. They have fluffy pink crop tops, you have… Nothing, actually. You’re sent out there in booty shorts and converse. The girls look like dolls, you decide, and they’re probably meant to. Your converse match your eyes and you wonder if you’re a doll too.

You’re a waiter, for now. You deliver bottles of beer and martini and shot glasses to tables of slightly drunk looking business men, and you still smile and widen your eyes but now you don’t steal money from them. Why should you, when they leave it on the table? Sometimes the men pinch your ass as you walk away, and you don’t really like it but you see other girls giggle and swat at them playfully when it happens to them, so you do it too.

A woman runs this place. Her first name is unknown to you, you know her as Ms. Opheee, and you haven’t seen her since you were young. She’d been best friends with your mother, apparently, but you have no idea how old she is. You see her today, because it’s your sixteenth birthday and you’ve been called to her office.

“Hello dear,” she smiles when she sees you walk in. There is an english lilt in her voice that you just now remember her having.

“Hey.”

“Have a seat.”

You carefully sit down in one of the plush chairs in front of her desk, tugging at the sleeves of your hoodie nervously. Why are you here? Is she going to kick you out now that you’re sixteen? Aradia told you she kept you because of a promise to Roxy, has she fulfilled her promise? This may be a sleazy bar where you’ve been exposed to sex and prostitution since the day you were born, but it’s your home.

“You seem nervous, dear, what’s bothering you?”

“I’m not nervous.” You fight to keep your expression neutral. Always be either neutral or flirty, that’s what Fef taught you. “Cool as a cucumber, that’s me.”

She smiles, then gets right to her point. “You’re sixteen today, correct?”

“Yep.”

“No longer a child.” She folds her hands on the desk in front of her and you swallow. “Men come to my bar for a multitude of reasons, but what most, if not all of them have in common is that they are looking to buy one of my girls for the night.”

Yeah? You know this. You’ve always known this.

“Normally we would not even consider offering them another alternative, but I believe you could be good for business.”

She stops talking to give you a few moments to process what she’s said. Alternative… Good for business… “Wait, you mean, you want me to, to just take their money and let them…”

“Yes, dear.” The look in her eyes tells you that you don’t have a choice.

“Okay.”


	2. A Hard Night's Work

You suppose your situation could be worse.

You could be doing the same thing out on the street: fucking people for money, except then you’d probably have every std known to man. You could be asexual, and find no pleasure from sex at all. (Not that you really enjoy this all that much to begin with.) You could be doing this and not getting paid a wonderful amount of money.

Yeah, all things considered, your situation could be _much_  worse. You have a roof over your head, clothes on your back (sometimes) food in your stomach, and people who love you.

Men do buy you, just as Ms. Opheee predicted. So does the occasional woman. You can’t say it’s unpleasant. Not entirely _pleasant_ , but much more pleasant than when men buy you. The men almost always fuck you – you learn pretty quickly what the word ‘twink’ means – and they don’t care if you’re stretched or hard. Most of them probably wouldn’t even bother with lube and condoms if you didn’t refuse to do anything without them.

The women, on the other hand, can’t exactly do much in the way of fucking you; most of them prefer riding. You enjoy this slightly more – it certainly hurts a lot less – but the women are often considerably meaner. Their nails rake across your chest and they slap your face and hiss, _stay hard, little boy, stay hard,_  and it’s hard to stay hard when you don’t like them and you’re in pain, but you’re not a little boy, you’re sixteen, and that makes it a fair bit easier.

You’re still a waiter as well, since they can’t exactly make you a bartender, (they can’t exactly have you accept money in turn for having sex with people but, well.) and you still wear your converse and booty shorts and wink and giggle and try not to flinch when you get pinched. You certainly _wish_  you could be a bartender. No one can touch you over the counter.

This man has been eyeing you all evening, touching your fingers and wrist when you put drinks on the table, staring at your ass when you leave, but he won’t say anything. You’re supposed to encourage customers, you know that, but you don’t really want to.

But rules are rules, and you have a job to do. So instead of placing his bill on the table, you place yourself. All five feet and eleven inches of your pale, lanky, sixteen year old self.

You sit on the edge with your feet on either side of his lap, leaning forward and placing your hands on his shoulders. “Hey babe,” you purr, rolling your back and massaging his shoulders with your finger tips.

“Hello there,” he purrs in response, not hesitating to put his hands on your hips and pull you forward. You land in his lap with a barely masked squeak and then his lips are on your neck, sucking and biting and you manage to hiss, “Don’t leave marks.”

He grunts in acknowledgement and moves away from that spot, not staying anywhere longer than a few seconds after that. He rubs his hands over your chest and thighs and chuckles against your skin. “Twink,” you hear him breathe. You’ve come to hate that word.

He gropes you for a few more minutes before he asks you if there’s somewhere 'more private’ you can go. You know he already knows the answer and you give the answer you know you’re supposed to give and lead him quickly to the back rooms kept for this purpose.

Everyone who works here has their own private room that they use for 'work.’ They’re kind of nice, you suppose. Yours is no better or worse than any of the other rooms – a king sized bed, wall to wall carpet, a few sets of drawers for condoms and lubes and other various shit. You don’t like being in here – no good memories. Upstairs is where you were raised and loved and you can wear as much or little as you want. Downstairs is where you and your booty shorts are bought and sold, fucked thoughtlessly and left without turning back.

The man pushes you and you fall on the bed on your back, looking up at him with red eyes. You don’t like them, but Ms. Opheee tells you they raise your worth (apparently red eyes are 'exotic') so there’s nothing you can do. The man hovers over you and leans in an attempt to connect your lips, but you pull back. “I don’t kiss.” You’ve never kissed anyone, even if you’ve fucked more people than you can count. You want to make sure at least one first is given to you by someone you at least know the name of, let alone care about.

“Got a lot of rules, don’t you slut?” the man growls. You stare at him blank faced and he huffs before carrying on. His clothes are quickly removed, as are your shorts. He rips the seam a bit in his haste, and you stop yourself from growling angrily at that. Those cost money, you know! He doesn’t bother with your shoes and you barely have enough time to shove a condom and lube at him before he’s throwing your feet over your shoulders and pushing into you and groaning about how tight you are.

You groan in discomfort and try to pass it off as a noise of pleasure, but he doesn’t care. The man fucks you hard and fast and the headboard slams against the wall but you don’t care either. Neither of you is giving a shit and you’re numb, removed, you’ll do what you’re told because you owe it to Ms. Opheee, so you let the man finish and complain about the condom as he peels it off. He leaves and you curl up on the bed, naked save for your shoes, and you don’t cry.


	3. A New Friend

You are seventeen now, still not old enough to be a bartender, and oh God you wish you could be nothing but a waiter. You don’t understand what the big deal about sex is, you _hate_  it. There are girls here who are so eager to do their jobs, but you just  _don't understand._

Even so, being a waiter lets you quickly become familiar with the locals who frequent the bar. There’s a group that you serve quite often, every weekend, in fact.

A girl who does most of the drinking with blonde hair like yours and purple eyes, a boy with black hair and blue glasses and buck teeth, a girl who looks pretty similar to him with the same black hair and buck teeth only with green glasses, and a few others. An angry looking Latino boy, his tall friend who drinks as much as the purple eyed girl, a girl who always smiles a bit to the side of you and wears ridiculous pointy red glasses.

You like these kids. Some of them are clearly over twenty one, but you figure the rest of them have fake ids. There is no way the Latino boy or the kid with blue glasses are above the drinking age. But you aren’t a bouncer, you don’t care, you’re just here to bring them drinks. (And have sex, but these kids don’t seem to know about or be interested in that.)

One night you go over to their table and over half the group is missing.

The only ones there are the girl with black hair and glasses, the latino boy, and the girl with red glasses. You think she’s blind, or at least nearly there. Her drink is always tight in her hand, she never looks directly at people, and you see her smelling the air far too often to be considered normal.

When you come over to take their orders, the girl with black hair smiles brightly at you. She always does. “Hey there, what can I get you?” you ask, smirking and leaning on one hip. Flirty. Flirty gets you higher tips.

“I’ll have a Sprite!” the black haired girl speaks up immediately. She always gets some kind of soda, you’ve noticed.

“Same,” the latino boy mumbles.

“I’ll have a beer!” the red headed girl pipes up. She smiles widely and you find you’re not faking when you smile back. She has the most infectious smile you’ve ever seen. (Which is strange, since she can’t see it ((or anything else.)))

“Coming up,” you say. You wink at the boy, hoping to cheer him up. He smiles a little, but you notice it drop as soon as you start to turn away.

When you come back with their drinks, the girls are giggling and nudging their friend, who looks half pissed off and half like he’s enjoying it but trying not to. You hand the girls their drinks, then pick up the boy’s Sprite. “And for the lovely gentleman~” You place it on the table and lean on your hip. “Anything else?” You wink again.

The girls giggle louder and continue nudging him. “We heard what you do here!” the black haired girl exclaims. “You know… How you…” She cuts herself off in a fit of giggles.

“You wanna fuck Karkles?” the blind girl says bluntly with a smile.

The boy – Karkles (?) – splutters and blushes and looks away as you grin. The girls are beside themselves with laughter.

“I might,” you say casually, smirking at them. “Depends. Can he pay for it?”

“Oh we got that covered!” the blind girl laughs. “Come on, our little Karkles is lonely!”

“And he’s your age!” the black haired girl adds in.

The boy shushes her quickly. “What, you want the whole fucking bar to know I’m underage, jesus fuck, Jade.”

The girl, Jade apparently, giggles and covers her mouth.

“You don’t know how old I am,” you point out. “And kid if you really were my age, I’d be a little concerned.”

The blind girl takes in a large breath through her nose. “Seventeen,” she announces. You stare at her, and she takes your silence as confirmation. “Yeah, you just /reek/ like hormones, kid. So, is Karkles gettin’ some tonight or not?” She wiggles her eyebrows at you and the boy grumbles.

“Stop calling me Karkles, Terezi, we’re not kids anymore.”

Terezi cackles and elbows him. “Speak for yourself.”

“And I’m not particularly interested in ‘getting some’ tonight, thank you.” He huffs and crosses his arms and you and the other girl, Jade, are exchanging glances like 'is this still happening?’ by now.

Terezi just laughs and takes a swig of her beer, then turns to (more or less) look at you. “We’ll get back to you on this one,” she says with a wink, and you take that as your queue to leave.

* * *

 

You’re cleaning up their table after they leave when you find a napkin with writing on it.

_555-183-1839 - karkat_

You quickly shove it in the waist band of your shorts and tell yourself you’ll text him later.


	4. A Little Bit Of Flirting

You’ve been off work for about an hour now. Lying in your bed – your own bed, upstairs, in your own room – wrapped in a hoodie and sweatpants and fluffy red socks, you’ve been debating texting Karkat for just as long.

Does he even want to be texted? Did one of his friends make him leave the number? What if it’s a fake number? No one’s ever wanted to talk to you outside of work before. (Aside from the girls, but none of them really count)

 _You’re being ridiculous,_  you think to yourself.  _Just fucking text him._

Of course this opens up a whole new set of questions. Does he know your name? Do you act like Bar Dave or Whore Dave or Dave Dave? Not like Whore Dave, obviously, since Karkat has never met Whore Dave, but would he even recognize Dave Dave?

Would _you_  recognize Dave Dave?

Bar Dave. He definitely knows Bar Dave.

TG: hey there, one hot as hell waiter, at your service ;)

You groan immediately after you send it at how _stupid_  that sounds.

CG: HOLY DICK SHIT ARE YOU THAT BLOND KID FROM THE DOLL HOUSE

Holy dick shit. That’s something you don’t hear every day.

TG: the one and only B)

CG: TEREZI FUCKING WROTE MY NUMBER ON A NAPKIN DIDN’T SHE OH MY FUCK

TG: thought she was blind?

CG: YOU NEVER DOUBT TEREZI PYROPE

TG: aight then

TG: hey man you wanna chill with the caps? no need for yellin at me

You hate yelling. Yelling means anger and anger means violence. And you’re usually on the receiving end.

CG: NO CAN DO, BLONDIE. HIT THE CAPS LOCK TOO HARD, NOW IT’S STUCK

TG: ever think about takin your phone to get fixed?

CG: I’M USUALLY TYPING IN CAPS ANYWAY AND IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS IF I GET MY PHONE FIXED OR NOT

Feisty.

TG: ok, ok, just a suggestion

CG: HEY WHAT’S YOUR NAME

How are you actually so stupid that you haven’t even told him your name yet. This is why you don’t have friends.

TG: dave strider, pleasure to meet you

CG: THE PLEASURE IS MINE

TG: i can certainly make it yours ;)

Stupid! You’re supposed to be shifting into Dave Dave, not Whore Dave.

CG: OOH MR. STRIDER IS HERE TO PLAY FOLKS

TG: only if you’ll play with me ;)

Bad Dave!

CG: YOU MAKE A TEMPTING OFFER

You know you do. Who can resist this fine piece of Strider ass?

CG: I GOTTA GO, IT’S LATE AND I HAVE TO WORK IN THE MORNING

It’s only midnight, but your hours are pretty messed up from what’s considered normal.

CG: I’LL TEXT YOU TOMORROW

TG: k night

CG: GOODNIGHT

You turn your phone off and bury yourself under the covers. Terezi wrote down his number. Terezi. Not him. But he doesn’t seem to hate you that much, despite snapping a little at you when you suggested he get his phone fixed. Hit the caps lock button too hard. Why is that so easy to believe?

Someone knocks at your door and you jump. You quickly close your eyes and even out your breathing, you don’t really want to talk to anyone.

But it’s just Aradia, tip toeing in to kiss your head and wish you a goodnight. You mumble it back and she leaves, closing the door and blocking out the last light from the hallway.


	5. A Rare Day Off

You have been texting Karkat all week.

He’s sweet, you find out once you get last the permanent caps lock and the aggressive front. He’s sweet and a little dorky and he’s absolutely obsessed with shitty rom coms. He loves his friends, he calls every day objects by weird as fuck names sometimes, and he has a weird thing with giant sweaters. He _is_  your age, more or less, you’d be in the same grade if you actually went to school. He’s a senior. One of the youngest in the class. You don’t bother trying to mask your curiosity as you drain him for every detail of public school you can.

He and his friends aren’t coming to the bar this week, but you’ve actually got Saturday off. You don’t have to fuck anyone, you don’t have to wait tables, you don’t even have to wash dishes. You’re free to lay in bed all day if you so choose, or go out, but you haven’t really done that in years.

That’s not to say you haven’t left the building, obviously. You go out back almost nightly to sit with a few of your coworkers as they smoke. (You don’t smoke, you can’t stand the taste.) You walk to the store for apple juice and snacks, you go to the Chinese place with Aradia and Fef. Sometimes you even sneak up to the roof. You leave the building.

But it’s been forever since you actually _went_  somewhere. Since you spent more than an hour or so outside.

So when Karkat asks you if you want to hang out on Saturday, you don’t hesitate to say yes.

He likes a certain little pizza shop in the heart of the city, because it’s family run and he thinks there’s something good about the ‘atmosphere.’ You are not here for atmosphere. You are here for pizza and a certain dark haired boy.

Feferi catches you as you’re trying to sneak out the back, asks you where you’re going so well dressed on such a fine afternoon. She’s dressed in her bartender uniform, but shes throwing on a coat. Headed home, you assume. She doesn’t live here anymore. You tell her that you’re going to have lunch with a friend, blush when she winks, and duck out asap when she asks if it’s that boy Aradia says you’ve been texting nonstop. Her friendly laughter follows you out into the alley.

You huff a little in annoyance before straightening up and beginning to walk. You leave the alley the back door leads to and make it onto the street, slipping into the crowds of walking people.

Yesterday you’d broken into Mrs. Opheee’s office (risky business, you don’t know what would have happened had you been caught,) to use her computer. Karkat had given you the name of that pizza shop, but you didn’t actually know how to get there. An incognito tab, google maps, two addresses… You were in and out in less than a minute.

Luckily you’ve always been good at remembering things, and you have no trouble following the route the shop. A little bell on the door chimes when you walk in, and it smells like pepperoni and dough. A girl maybe a few years older than you is propped up behind the counter, reading a hard cover book that looks very well loved. She is the only other person in here. When she sees you she immediately puts in a bookmark and pushes it to the side.

“Hello!” she says happily. “Take a seat anywhere you like, I’ll come take your order in a few minutes, kay?”

“Uh, I’m actually gonna be waiting for someone, he should be here in a few minutes hopefully.” You stutter a little, but the girl either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

“That’s fine!” she says happily, going back to her book.

After buying a Dr. Pepper from the cooler, you find a somewhat isolated booth to the side of the counter, out of her view unless she bends forward to peer around the drinks. Settling down, you pull out your phone and start texting Karkat.

TG: hey karcrab this is a pretty cute little shop

CG: ISN’T IT?

CG: OH ARE YOU ALREADY THERE? I’LL BE THERE SOON, THIS STUPID BUS IS TAKING FORFUCKINGEVER

CG: AND STOP CALLING ME KARCRAB

TG: you got it kitkat

CG: DAMN YOU, STRIDER

You chuckle a bit and leave him to the rest of his bus ride in peace.

If you were a normal kid, you might text one of your other friends. You might open Instagram or Twitter and see what your classmates are up to. Maybe you’d do something cool like open some top of the line, expensive, sound mixing app, and spin out some sick beats, or write some music.

But you’re not a normal kid. You don’t have other friends, you don’t have social media, and as much as you love music, you’re not that great at mixing, and you don’t know how to play any instruments. There’s no one to teach you, and you don’t have a computer to look up tutorials. You’re also missing a physical instrument, which is pretty crucial if one wishes to learn.

You do have one thing to keep you busy. You’ve figured out how to get onto the roof of the bar, and you have to say, it’s a pretty breathtaking view. The whole city, sprawled out below like some vast synthetic garden. Is there a better way to preserve the moment than a shitty iPhone picture? You couldn’t think of one.

That one shitty iPhone picture turned into a slightly better one, and then a few more, and now you more or less consider yourself an amateur photographer. The apps you screw around on are editing ones.

You’re trying to put a fake layer of stars over a skyline picture when the bell above the door rings. “Hi there!” the girl exclaims. “Back again, huh?” You lift your head, and there is Karkat, standing in the doorway with a small smile on his face.

“Couldn’t stay away,” he agrees. When he sees you his smile grows, and he comes over.

“Hey,” you say, nodding at him.

“Hey, I hope you haven’t been here too long?”

“Nah.” You wave him off, taking a sip of your soda. “What about you, huh? How was your hellishly slow bus ride?”

He rolls his eyes and groans. “You’d think that someone who drives a bus _for a living_  would be fucking better at it! God, we were either going point two miles an hour or driving over curbs or…” He’s started ranting, and you chuckle along. He gestures wildly with his hands as he speaks, tugging at his hair and slapping the table, and several times you are forced to quell the urge to reach out and take one of those frantic hands and hold it still in your own.

The girl, who he calls Mar when she comes over, takes your order and tells you it’ll be a few minutes in her usual happy tone. Okay, maybe you’re starting to understand this 'atmosphere’ thing.

Once you’ve finished the pizza – you’ve never had pizza with the makings of a fruit salad on it before, surprisingly good – you and Karkat walk around the city for a bit. He points out some places he’s been with his friends, as well as a few shops he likes, and you encourage him to go into some. It takes a bit, but eventually he finds a shop he deems worthy enough to bring you into. After twenty minutes you’re forced to drag him out.

You walk around the city for several hours, until Karkat has reached an adorable state of sleepiness. “Do you wanna ho home?” you chuckle as he leans against you while you wait for the traffic light to change. You wrap your arm around his shoulders and pat his arm, quickly removing it after.

“No,” he mumbles back defiantly.

Yes. He’s not even paying attention to where you’re going anymore, so you when you cross the street you lead him to the bus stop not far away. He doesn’t protest when you sit him down, just tucks himself into your side. “What bus?” you ask before he can completely fall asleep.

He has to say it three times before you hear, and you let him snuggle into you while you wait. It’s a little strange to you, being this close to someone in a way that’s completely innocent, but you think you might like it. You wrap an arm around Karkat’s shoulder again, rubbing his arm.

When the bus comes, you pay for both of you and get situated in the seats. Karkat wakes up enough to protest – “I don’t even live in the city, Strider, you can’t walk me all the way home!” – but you brush him off and he relents and tells you his stop and falls asleep again quickly.


	6. A Night Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really bad and it's late im sorry i had finals and now drivers ed im sorr y

You manage to get Karkat off the bus in one piece. “I can walk from here,” he tries to protest, but you’re having none of it. He’s swaying on his feet a little, and he can’t keep his eyes open. He finally quits arguing and tells you what direction to go.

You walk with an arm around his waist as he leans lightly on your shoulder. “I feel like you should at least buy me dinner before I let you into my house,” he mumbles at one point, a light smile on his lips.

You chuckle at him. “It’s not even time for dinner yet, dumb ass.”

He just huffs. “Don’t be a fuck licker – ” A what? “ – you get the idea.”

You do get the idea. “I won’t come in if you don’t want me to,” you say, not joking for once in your life. “Seriously man, if you want me stay out, I’ll stay out. You don’t know me well. I get that.”

Karkat kind of waves his hand a bit in dismissal. “I don’t mind, I was just joking. And I’d like to think I know you pretty well.”

You nod a little. “Alright.” The rest of the walk to his house is in silence, and he pulls you to a stop in front of one of those huge condominium buildings. He’s more awake by now and not really leaning on you, but your arm is still around his waist. Karkat leads you inside and through the lobby and you’re not touching as you wait for the elevator, you were about to say goodbye. But then it opens and he pulls you right in.

“I can make you dinner,” he offers on the way up. “You know, for taking me all the way home even though I _told you that you didn't have to._ ” He’s trying to glare at you, but you see the smile tugging at the corners of his lips and that ruins the effect.

“You’re welcome,” you reply offhandedly. “And yeah, dinner would be great.” You’ve never been to someone else’s house before, you’re a little nervous.

When the elevator stops on the twelfth floor, Karkat tugs you out and down the hallway. It’s sparse and narrow and there’s a worn path in the middle of the carpet, the walls painted an ugly beige. He forces the key into the lock and has to jiggle it a little before it opens. He doesn’t call out when he walks in, all the lights are off, and you don’t see anyone. The furniture looks pretty sparse, it looks like he’s the only one living here.

“Where are your parents?” you blurt out.

He glares at you a little out of the corner of his eye as he toes off his shoes, motioning for you to do the same. You do and watch the way his back expands as he heaves a sigh. “They’re gone,” is all he says, and you know better than to push it.

“So what’s for supper, Kitkat?”

He glares at you again, but there’s a faint smile on this lips and he thinks about it. “Have you ever had bori bori?”

“I have not. Is it in any way associated with Bora Bora?” You lean back against the counter and adjust your shades before shoving your hands in your pockets. Karkat has begun to bustle around his small kitchen, taking out pots and ingredients you don’t recognize. He pauses to come over and smack your arm with the wooden spoon he’s holding. You laugh a little and duck away.

He returns to the other counter and pulls out a rather large knife. “It does not have anything to do with Bora Bora. It’s a dish native to Paraguay. Know where that is, Strider?” He’s produced a cutting board and is focused on dicing up a chuck of what looks like chicken breast.

You’ve heard of the country, but you’re pretty much at a loss for its location. You take a stab in the dark. “Somewhere in South America?”

He glances up long enough to smile at you. “That’s right. It’s right on the equator, actually. Hot as hell, year round.”

“You’ve been there?” You don’t want to assume that’s where he was born, but he says it actually is as he’s measuring out flour and water and mixing it together. He tells you about what he remembers, since he moved away when he was about to turn five and start school. You listen as he describes the city he lived in, and the river that surrounded a large part of it. He tells you about his family and childhood friends, and you listen, fascinated, through the whole thing.

Eventually he’s dishing out bowls of his ‘bori bori,’ and he gestures to the seat across the small table from him as he sits down. You push yourself off the counter and take a seat, picking up your spoon and moving things around in your bowl for a second. Everything looks edible, so you scoop up a piece of chicken and shove it in your mouth. It’s delicious, and Karkat watches with no small amount of amusement as you shovel it in your mouth as fast as you can.

“I’m glad _somebody_ appreciates my cooking,” he hums as he eats.

“Who doesn’t appreciate this?” you demand. “Tell me. I’ll fight them.”

Karkat rolls his eyes, but laughs at you nonetheless. “You will not be fighting any of my friends.”

You point your spoon at him in challenge. “Try me. Where are they? I’ll kick their ass. I’ll kick anyone’s ass.” You begin waving your spoon in the air as you get caught up in your tiny rant. “I’ll kick your dog’s ass. I’ll kick my own ass!”

“Strider, relax!” he laughs. “You couldn’t kick anyone’s ass.”

“I’ll kick your ass!”

You’re both laughing so hard you’re bent over the table because who are you fooling, really? You couldn’t land a blow hard enough to bruise anyone but yourself. By the time you can both breathe again, it’s been five minutes, but then someone says something else and you’re off again.

You end up talking until long after the sun goes down, shifting a few times to clear away plates and to move to the sagging couch, and before you even realize it’s nearing eleven. You start to awkwardly excuse yourself, dreading the walking and bus ride back into the city, but Karkat surprises you again.

“You can always stay here, for tonight, I mean… It’s a long way back to the city and it’s late I don’t want you get murdered or mugged or anything…”

You place a hand over your heart. “You _do_  care.”

A blush floods his cheeks, and Karkat shoves you before telling you the couch is all your’s, and he’ll see if he can find something big enough for you to sleep in.


	7. A Not So Straight White Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to this chapter for giving me the excuse to Google white boy names

When you wake up the next morning, it takes you quite a while to identify the smell coming from the kitchen area. Pancakes. Oh hell fucking yes.

You’ve had pancakes only a few times in your pathetic, unfulfilling life, and never have they smelled as heavenly as this. You nearly trip over your blanket as you fly off the couch.

Karkat is in the kitchen, casually flipping pancakes like he hasn’t made your life three hundred times better by doing it. “Morning,” he says when he sees you standing in the doorway, breathing a little unevenly in his sweatpants that are the tiniest bit too small and the raglan you had on yesterday hanging off one shoulder.

Upon realizing your appearance you straighten your shirt and your hair and try to regain some composure. “Hey,” you reply.

Karkat chuckles a little and you almost demand to know what he’s laughing at before you realize it’s probably the quick as shit way you tried to turn yourself around. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes,” he says, and you nod, ambling into the kitchen and leaning on the counter beside him. The smell is almost otherworldly, and you have to resist the urge to drool all over your new friend and his kitchen floor.

When he hands you a plate of pancakes you nearly inhale them, ripping them to bits and dunking them in a fucking lake of syrup on your plate as Karkat looks on with amusement. The two of you talk for a while until you realize what time it is, and you regretfully inform him you have to get to work. He pouts at you a little, but says goodbye and begins cleaning the kitchen as you change back into your jeans in the living room. He hugs you before you go, and you leave his apartment with a giddy smile on your face.

Your trip back to the city is long and uneventful, and you make to the bar with half an hour to get ready. When you pass Feferi at the bar she makes kissing faces that border on obscene and shoots pointed looks at your rumpled clothes and hair. You dash upstairs as fast as you can.

You take as long a shower as you can manage, trying to prolong going to work. But unfortunately you can’t stand in the water forever.

Getting dressed takes all of thirty seconds. Combing, drying, and straightening your hair takes another ten minutes. Your hair is already pretty straight, but a few passes of the straightener never hurt anyone. (You totally haven’t burned yourself once or twice. Nope, not you.) You stare at yourself in the mirror, sneer at your eyes, and leave the bathroom.

* * *

 

You hate tonight. The place is fucking packed, because apparently people have nothing better to do on a Sunday night, like sleep. It’s crowded as hell, and you try your best to slip through the crowds without getting groped and pinched and cat called. You’re failing miserably.

When you finally make it to the booth you’re supposed to be at, you give them a thin smile and place their drinks on the table. “Enjoy,” you say tensely, and go to leave. You don’t like these guys. Call it bad vibes or whatever, this group of guys possibly in their twenties make you extremely uncomfortable.

Before you can get more than two steps away, there’s a hand on your wrist. “Hey, where ya goin?” one of the guys slurs. You turn around slowly to see it was the one who grabbed you. “Stay a lil’ while, baby, you might see somethin’ you like.”

“I have to get back to work,” you say quickly, tugging on your wrist. He doesn’t let go, and you could easily get away if you wanted to, but that would probably cause a scene. The last thing you want is to lose your job.

“Hey this is kinda work,” one of the other guys calls.

“We could _make it_  work,” another one says.

You swallow and slowly move back to the booth. There’s no room on either side to sit, but the guy holding your wrist tugs you right into his lap. You barely hide a squeak as the rest of the guys laugh at your reaction. You know none of your coworkers will hassle you for sitting with them, especially for sitting on one of them, since it looks like you’re trying to seduce them. If you want to get technical, _they’re_  trying to seduce  _you._

This thought snaps you back into your working mindset. _You_  are in charge here. _You_  are the one with the power to bend them to your will, to make them want you, no, _need_  you.

You manage to turn yourself around the guy’s lap so you’re facing him. “How much longer you gonna be here, hmm?” you purr in his ear, nipping the tiniest bit at the skin and rolling your hips.

The guy gasps a little, but his voice is smooth when he answers you. “For however long it takes.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes, and decide to play dumb. You begin rolling your hips a little harder. “It takes to what?” you asks, digging up that innocent act from your childhood. You can feel the bulge against your thigh. Oooh yes. What a fat wallet. This kid is probably loaded with Daddy’s money. You don’t care whose money as long as it ends up your’s.

His hands run over your bare shoulders and back and by now you’re pretty much grinding on him. “To get you all to myself.”

“Hey man, share.” one of his friends protests.

You scowl in annoyance. You were so close to getting booked, dammit, couldn’t these guys just let their friend get laid so you could go upstairs and sleep?

The guy you’re straddling pushes you away a bit to glare at his friend, and you try to move back in. You want to get this over with. But the guys around you laugh and tease.

“Wow he’s eager!”

“Can’t wait to get in your pants, Chad.”

“You talkin’ about him or you, Ross?”

“Shut it, Dylan.”

The original guy who spoke up is staring at the kid you’re straddling. “Whaddya say, Chad? Up for a little sharin’?”

Chad, you guess his name is, smirks. “I suppose.”

Several of the guys start yelling again. “Didn’t know you were into that, Jack.”

“’S gettin’ hot in here, innit boys?”

“Maybe we should head out, give em some room.”

“They’re not gonna have sex right in the damn booth, Ross.”

“Hey man I don’t know, I’ve heard of some pretty crazy shit goin’ down in this place.”

You’re growing impatient. You’re not getting paid to sit here and listen to these whiter than white boys argue. You roll your hips a few times and go back to sucking on his neck.

“Ooh he wants to get started,” one of them teases.

“Better not keep him waiting.”

You slip off the guy’s lap and tug on his wrist; you’ll never get anything done as long as he’s around his friends. When he gets up to follow you, that other guy who kept talking about sharing gets up as well. A bunch of the guys yell and cheer. “Jack’s gettin’ some too!” one of then shouts. The other two begin fake moaning.

It’s harder to resist rolling your eyes this time.

You manage to get them to the back room through the crowds of people, and neither of them waste a second. The instant the door is closed the first boy has you pinned up against it and is sucking on your neck. “Rules!” you gasp quickly. He pulls away to stare at you with a lifted eyebrow, his friend leaning around his shoulder to do the same. “I have some rules.”

“Let’s here ‘em then.”

You lift your chin a little and tilt your head against the wood of the door. Breathe. In. Out. “One, no kissing.”

The back guy scoffs. “Wouldn’t wanna kiss you anyway.”

You level a glare at him. “I don’t like you either. Two, if I say stop, you stop. Price will be adjusted accordingly. Three, no leaving marks. Of any kind. Four.” One of them rolls his eyes and you glare. “Lube and condoms are required.”

“Damn is that all?”

“It’s just four things, Jack, god, think you can manage?” Chad bites. The kid in the back falls silent and you smirk for half a second before you’re being roughly yanked away from the door. You don’t react as they push you backwards onto the bed, kneeling over you beside each other.

They discuss with each other for a minutes how they want to go about this, and pretty soon you’re flipped over onto your hands and knees. Your face is pushed down a bit into the mattress and they laugh as the kid behind you rips down your shorts. They’re manhandled down your legs and over your shoes, which are removed shortly after.

One of them is positioned in front you, undoing his belt and zipper. You hear condom wrappers and lube bottles in the background, but you’re sufficiently distracted by the guy in front of you pulling his half hard dick out and shoving it in your face. You open your mouth like you know you’re supposed to, and the guy doesn’t hesitate. He pushes into your mouth and starts thrusting his hips, not even letting you blow him, just skipping straight to fucking your face.

You’ve almost forgotten about the guy behind you when all of a sudden he’s positioned at your entrance, and you resist the urge to move away as he pushes in. You whimper around the dick in your mouth and the guy slaps your face a little, his friend behind you moaning and gripping your hips and ass as he immediately starts moving. You whine a little because fuck he’s kind of big and this kind of hurts, but you’re ignored.

After a while of both of them fucking you from both sides, they switch places, and you’re given a moment to breath as they maneuver around the bed and condoms are dealt with. You fall from your hands to your forearms and cough a little, wincing and trying to smother whimpers as the movements jostle your body. Everything hurts.

Soon enough they resume, and after you hear them talking to each other as their thrusts slow. You’re relieved for a second when they pull away, gulping down some much needed air. It’s short lived, because they flip you onto your back and one of them continues fucking you as the other just jerks it over your face.

You don’t really know what to do, so you just lie there, but they don’t seem to mind. The guy above you finishes with a groan and you close your eyes as he spills all over your face and chest. It’s not even seconds later when the guy fucking you pulls out, pulls off the condom, and does the same. They catch their breath above you for a second before climbing off the bed. They’re pulling on clothes you don’t remember them taking off and pulling out wallets. Distantly, you hear them asking about prices and you answer numbly, watching them halfheartedly leave the cash on the table.

You curl up a little as they’re leaving, you only move when your skin starts to cool and you begin to feel sticky and disgusting. You rush upstairs to shower.

When you get into bed with just your boxers and t shirt, you realize you have a text.

CG: HEY STRIDER

He sent it fairly recently, while you were showering. You don’t really want to talk, but you feel bad just ignoring him.

TG: hey man i’m beat rn, but i’ll text you in the morning or something k?

CG: SURE WHATEVER. GOODNIGHT

TG: night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going on vacation with spotty WiFi so i don't know when the next chapter will be up sorry


	8. A Slice Of The Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave witnesses the nasty as a tiny cinnamon roll oh ho ho

You remember the first time you learned what sex really was. You’d known before, kind of, in the way any seven year old knows what sex is. ‘When two people love each other very much…’

You were downstairs, sitting in the lap of one of the waitresses as a group of women circled around you, cooing and touching your hair and your face. You didn’t like it much, but you smiled and giggled like the cute little kid you were expected to be. Eventually the women left, and the waitress you were with told you to stay there and that she’d be right back.

You stayed there. For about ten seconds.

They never left you unattended down here – who in their right mind would leave a seven year old alone in a nightclub – and you were eager to explore. You wandered away from the general crowd of people and found a door labeled 'Employees Only.’ You weren’t really an employee. You were seven. But you did live here, and that had to count for something, right? You slipped inside.

There were doors along the opposite wall, evenly spaced until the hallway turned at either end. You’d never been back here before. Quietly, you crept forward to the first door. It was closed, like most of them, but the handle turned when you tried it, so you pushed the door open.

You were confused at first – a bedroom? – there were people in the bed and maybe there are just more rooms down here? You heard moaning and then a gasp you couldn’t really explain what you were seeing, you just stood there in horrified fascination until you heard someone calling your name. You quietly exited the room and go back to the front.

Aradia was looking for you, wearing jeans and a t shirt with her hair in a bun, her purse on one shoulder. She was going out. You wondered if you were going with her.

She asked where you were and you told her about the back hallway, and what you saw in the bedroom. Her face was pale when you finished. You asked her what they were doing, and you learned for the second time what sex was. This time in greater detail. You asked a lot of questions. You eventually found out that most of the waitresses here did it for money, but that it wasn’t really a normal thing to do. You asked if Aradia did it for money. She said yes. You asked if you would, one day. She said she hoped not.

You never went back there again. (Not until after you turned sixteen. You became quite acquainted with those rooms.) Aradia told you not to, and not to wander off when you’re downstairs. You listened, only because it was Aradia and you knew she wasn’t your mom but it felt like it most of the time.

When Fef took you to a playground one day, you made friends with another boy your age. He had messy dark brown hair and tanned skin the color of chocolate milk, and when the two of you witnessed some parents kissing he screwed up his face and laughed and made an ewww sound. You asked him what the matter was, and he just laughed again and told you, “Kissing is gross!”

You didn’t agree. You saw people kiss all the time, it was no big deal. You’d seen people do a lot more than kissing. It was just a normal thing to you. Aradia and Fef kissed sometimes. Every time you went downstairs there were people kissing all over the place. It was normal. You didn’t bother trying to explain this to your new friend. You didn’t realize just how messed up your view on intimacy was. (You’d grow out of it eventually, of course. You had Aradia and Fef to teach you that what they did wasn’t normal.)

You left the playground some time later, and of course neither of you realized that you’d meet again a decade later, under very different circumstances, with very different opinions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (That's young karkat he's playing with btw but neither of them remember the meeting)


	9. An Overdue Explanation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S three thirty am but yall deserve this

You have been friends with Karkat Vantas for three months, two weeks, and three days. Not that you’re counting. You’re definitely not counting.

When him and his friends come on the weekends, you hang around their table for longer than you should to talk to him. To the rest of them, too. You get along well with the girls – Jade and Terezi, who you met before, and the blonde girl Rose – and the boy with blue glasses, John. Karkat’s friend Gamzee, you don’t really like. He drinks a little too much and you’re pretty sure he’s high before he even walks in and if you’re being honest you’re all kinds of jealous of how close he is to Karkat.

On the days you don’t have to work, you usually spend the day in the city with Karkat. You walk around and poke at shops and as the weather gets colder with winter approaching Karkat tends to link his arm through yours. You still find innocent physical contact a bit foreign, but you’ve decided that when it’s Karkat, you definitely like it. You’ve gone back to his apartment a few times as well, and that’s where you sit now, pressed against one end of the couch with him on the other, your legs tangled between you. He’s throwing popcorn in the air and you’re trying to catch it. Most of it is going all over the couch and the carpet.

“Aw man, that was the last of it,” Karkat pouts, looking into the now empty bowl in his lap.

“I’d say we could make more, but I think I’ve got popcorn between every one of my teeth.” You begin prodding at your gums with your tongue, trying to loosen some of it. There’s only two or three pieces. Nothing you can’t handle.

It takes you a moment to realize Karkat is watching you, somewhat lost in thought so he can’t really see the way you’re screwing up your face trying to clean your teeth. “Hey man,” you say, trying to bring him back.

He just blinks. “Sorry. Hey… Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“It’s kinda personal, you don’t have to answer.”

Wow, you have absolutely no idea what he'a going to ask about. None at all. The picture of oblivious, it is you. You’ve told him, briefly, in bits and pieces, about your minor on the side prostitution job. You’ve tried to gloss over it, but he’s too sharp, he’s gathered more information than you’d like him to have. Your shades hide your eyes, so you close them as you wait for him to just get it out.

“Uh, the age of consent is seventeen right?”

“So I’m legal,” you say immediately. Almost defensively. (Very defensively.) Not the way you expected him to broach the subject, but he has a habit of surprising you.

“Yeah but… You said once that you’ve been… selling yourself… for like two years. Sixteen isn’t legal.”

You open your eyes and mumble under your breath about sixteen being legal in most other places.

“Yeah but we’re not in other places, Dave,” Karkat says hotly. “Like it or not, we’re in New York, and the age of consent is seventeen.”

“I mean, technically a sixteen year old can have sex with anyone so long as they’re not older than twenty – ”

“You’ve got to be at least twenty one to get into a night club.”

“Hasn’t stopped you.” You kind of regret that the second it comes out of your mouth. Karkat’s mouth hardens to a straight line, his eyebrows furrow even deeper.

“What’s that mean?”

You wince a little. “I don’t know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

He huffs and looks away from you.

You push your shades up into your hair and lean forward. “Hey. Kitkat. I’m sorry man, come on.”

He peeks at you without moving his head and the smallest smile tugs at his lips. “No. I’m mad at you.”

You lean forward more. “C'mon, no ya not.” Is that a New York accent? Do you have a New York accent? Here lies Dave Strider, New Yorker… Shudder. You’re distracted.

Karkat’s smiling more. “I am.”

You grin right back and poke at his arm. “Kiiiittykaaat.” You draw out the obnoxious nickname until he gives up and laughs and hits your hands away.

“Dammit, Strider!”

You laugh with him and shift your position so you’re sitting next to him. “Can’t stay mad at this fine piece of Strider, can you?”

“Guess not,” he mutters, trying to force the lingering smile from his lips. It seems to fade a second later though. “That aside, you were selling yourself at _sixteen_? Dave that’s too young.”

You don’t realize you’re moving to replace your shades until Karkat’s hand knocks yours away and grabs them off your head entirely. “No hiding,” he insists.

“Fine.” You try to force composure, harder without your shades. “Yes, I was a prostitute at age sixteen. Yes, I knew all along that it wasn’t a good thing to do, or something to talk about. I’ve always known that.”

His eyes narrow and you know you’ve said too much. “Always? How long have you been there?”

You swallow. “I started working as a waiter at fourteen.”

He seems to believe you, (he better freaking believe you, that’s the truth,) but he doesn’t seem to be satisfied. “You’ve been there longer though, haven’t you?”

Mentally, you want to make some noise of pain between a groan and a whine. You might as well just fucking spill it. He’ll piece it all together eventually, you’re sure. “I was born there,” you tell him.

His eyes widen. Clearly he wasn’t expecting that. “You – What?”

“My mom got knocked up at my age and kicked out, stumbled upon that place I guess. Died when I was young, I don’t remember her.” Karkat is just staring at you, mouth hanging slightly open. You chuck him under the chin and he closes it immediately. “Two of the girls working there raised me.”

“You’ve… You’ve lived there your whole life?”

You nod and make the smallest ‘mhm’ sound.

“You live there now?”

Another nod.

“Guess that explains why I’ve never been to your place,” he says with a dry chuckle. His face twists a little in confusion. Huh. Cute. Stop that Strider. “Are you ever gonna move out?”

You think about. You think about it some more. He’s getting impatient. You think about it out loud. “Most of the girls move out around eighteen, nineteen… Aradia and Fef – those are the girls who raised me – ” you add when he opens his mouth to inquire, “ – stayed a little longer, so they could look after me. Fef moved out when I was fourteen. Aradia still lives there, I guess. I could move out next month when I turn eighteen.” You shrug. “Don’t really know where I’d go. Don’t think I’m really qualified to live on my own.” You smirk a little at how sadly helpless you are. You can operate a washer and dryer, kind of, you know how to make ramen. You know how to make microwave meals. You’d survive, sure, but damn in what condition.

“You could always, I mean, I don’t have an extra room, but I live on my own, maybe…” He’s fumbling to articulate the offer, but he doesn’t look like he’s too mortified, so you just watch. “Maybe we could, I don’t know, live on our own… together?”

You smile at him, though he’s looking at the floor and, is that a blush? You think it is. “Let’s be alone together, we could stay young forever!” you start singing to ease his nerves. He probably doesn’t recognize the song, but he laughs and shoulders you regardless. You badly sing a few more lines before settling down. “I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seventeen years  
> In New York State, a person who is under age 16 but older than 13 years old can consent to sex with a person who is no more than 4 years older; the crime of the 3rd degree rape only happens when a person over the age of 21 has sex with a person who is under seventeen years old or younger


	10. A New Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about how late this is compared to my usual updates I've been working eight hour days five days a week and sleeping as soon as i get home I'm sOrr y

When you get home, you mull over Karkat’s offer. Move out of the only place you’ve ever lived, where you were born, where your family and friends are. You could live in a normal apartment. With a normal roommate. (You’d have to actually commute to work. That’s a bit of a scary thought.)

But maybe you could… find a job closer to Karkat’s place?

No. Foolish to think. You belong at The Doll House. All you’re good for is waiting tables and getting fucked, after all. And you owe it to Ms. Opheee. She took in your mother when she had nowhere to go, kept you even when she didn’t have to, gave you food and clothing and shelter and a job… You owe her your life.

But you can still move out, right? No one says you have to _live_  here. Where you go when you’re not working is your own business, as long as it doesn’t affect your work ethic. You can be wherever you want. If that is here, fine. If that is with Karkat… Who’s to stop you?

TG: that non existent spare room still available?

* * *

 

Moving out is a fairly easy process. You don’t have much stuff, just half a duffel bag full of clothes, your phone charger, and a few other odds and ends: A well worn copy of The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, a leather bracelet one of the girls bought you for your fifteenth birthday, extra shades, headphones… When you’ve packed up everything the bag isn’t even full.

It’s snowing when Aradia drives you to Karkat’s, a few weeks after your birthday. She offered to give you a ride so you don’t have to carry the bag on busses and walks. She smiles at you when the car stops in front of Karkat’s building, strokes your cheek, tells you how proud she is. Tells you she knows she’s not your mom but she feels like a proud one anyway. She tears up a little and looks straight ahead, then pets your head one more time before telling you to get on with your life. You kiss her on the cheek and tell her you’ll see her at work and that you love her. She returns the sentiment as she drives away.

You look up at Karkat’s building for a few seconds before heading in. The lobby is familiar. The elevator is familiar. It doesn’t feel different yet, just like you’re visiting again. Only this time you have a bag on your shoulder with all your worldly possessions. (Not very worldly.)

Karkat answers the door almost as soon as you knock, the biggest smile you’ve ever seen him wear on his face. It pulls his mouth more to the left to the right and you catch a glimpse of white teeth.

“Hey roomie,” you say casually, adjusting your bag. He grins back at you and pulls you inside by the hand.

Karkat’s couch is huge, and comfy, more than comfortable enough to sleep on, and that’s exactly what you plan on doing, for now. The two of you jokingly tossed around the idea of bunk beds while you were scrolling through the Ikea website, but after a quick scroll through their selection you stuck to the dresser you’d picked it out. It has since arrived and been assembled, (a time consuming process and dangerous process, full of bonding and good memories) and shoved into the corner of the living room, waiting for your clothes and aforementioned worldly possessions.

You toss your bag down and flop onto the couch. “That didn’t take too much work.”

“Have you forgotten the effort that went into the beast?” he asks, gesturing to the dresser in the corner. You wave your hand at it in dismissal, then at Karkat, gesturing him to come sit down. “You got any plans for tonight? Or are we just gonna sit around and eat too much takeout and enjoy the new company.”

You push your shades up into your hair. You’re relaxed right now, and Karkat isn’t someone you need to hide from. “I got the day off, we can just chill for tonight. Maybe break in the couch.” You wiggle your eyebrows even though there really isn’t anything you’d like less.

Karkat just snorts. “One, this a second hand couch, it doesn’t need breaking in. Two, no, Dave, just no.”

You smirk, (relieved) and lean back. “You and your dirty mind. I meant spend all night watching movies.” You widen your eyed and upturn your eyebrows in the middle and place a hand over your chest. The picture of innocence. “Why Karkat, what ever did you _think_  I meant?”

He punches you lightly in the shoulder and your ridiculous face melts into a grin. “Dork,” he comments. “Movies it is.”

You spend the rest of the afternoon watching movie after movie on Karkat’s TV. A decent size, worthy of the Strider Seal of Approval. His taste in movies is not as fortunate. Hour after hour of shitty rom coms has you wanting to tear your hair out.

You quickly give up focusing on them and just focus on Karkat instead. He’s sitting beside you, leaning a little into your arm as he starts intently at the screen. You can feel everywhere his body is touching yours, even through the layers of clothes. You love it. He’s warm and he smells like spices and you want to run your fingers through his hair and cuddle with him and you don’t think you’ve ever felt that need before.

You kind of want to kiss him. Maybe you will.


	11. A Shitty Filler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tfw your chapter takes too long to set up so you just chop it in half and leave a filler...

Things go exceedingly well in your new home. Karkat’s couch is still so, so comfortable, it now resembles more of a nest than a bed.

Karkat has school, and he has a job after, so he gets home around quarter of seven. It’s your job to scrounge up something for both of you to eat so that it’s ready or almost ready when he gets home, even if you just order Chinese food to arrive when he does. The two of you eat together, then you go to work. You get home at some inhuman hour of the morning, usually anywhere between three and five, so Karkat’s asleep when you get in. You don’t blame him. You don’t see each other much, but it’s enough.

On Saturdays when he comes with his friends you hang around their table a lot. You like to think you know Karkat pretty well by now, so you spend time trying to get to know his other friends. You like Rose and John the best, even if Rose is usually drunk and John apparently likes really shitty movies without even a hint of irony.

One night when you bring them their bill, Jade invites you to hang out with them next weekend. “It’ll be super fun!” she promises. “We’ll go to Rose’s place and maybe you can see her not drunk for once.”

Rose glares at her with a false sense of malice. “Excuse you,” she starts, her normally acerbic voice slightly slurred with alcohol. “Dave has seen me not drunk plenny of times. Like when we first arrive. I’m not so drunk then, am I?”

“That’s debatable,” Terezi says.

“Aw, don’t go harassin’ my – _hic_  – miracle sister now – _hic_  – Rezi, she ain’t even had all that much to drink,” Gamzee slurs. You try not to twitch at the sound of his voice. You hate him considerably less than you used to, but he still ticks you off.

Jade continues with her invitation. “Come on, we won’t let John play any of his shitty action movies or Karkat’s romcoms.”

“You know, I don’t particularly mind those,” Rose decides, leaning forward on the table. She begins poking at your fingers where they rest on the wood and you let her.

“Whattaya say?”

“Sure.”

* * *

 

You ask Aradia to tell Ms. Opheee that you’ll be taking next Saturday off, since even though you’ve got months worth of vacation days saved up, you hate taking them. She says of course she’ll let her know and you thank her before heading home.

Karkat is asleep when you get home. You don’t blame him, it’s like four thirty in the morning. You peek into his room, watch for a second as he breathes calmly, start to feel like a creep after a minute, close his door quickly and leave.

You go back out to your couch nest and crawl in, already dressed in sweatpants and a tee shirt from leaving work, and fall asleep quickly.

* * *

 

Next Saturday night you’re nervous. You’ve never hung out with Karkat’s friends outside of work before, when you’re wearing actual clothes. Hell these guys have only ever seen you shirtless and in very tiny shorts. You almost feel the need to overcompensate and wear two pairs of jeans and three sweatshirts and knee high boots.

But you don’t.

You’re Dave Strider.

You’re cool.

About as cool as it is outside, what with Christmas coming up and all. So you don’t wear two pairs of jeans and three sweatshirts, just stick to one of each and boots that barely clear your ankles. You fuss over your hair and polish your shades and fiddle with the leather bracelet on your wrist until Karkat comes out of his room and tells you to stop being a monkey slut. (A what? What the hell is that you’ve never heard of)

Rose apparently lives in the nicer part of New York, far enough away that you and Karkat are both counting out bills for the taxi ride when you arrive.

“Damn,” you say as you stand in front of the house with Karkat, “I don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen a house this nice.”

“She has a pool too, we’ll come back in summer. Now come on we’re going inside before my balls turn to ice and fall off,” Karkat huffs. He stomps up the front walk as you follow behind, momentarily too captivated by the fog your breath makes to think about the vulgarities coming from your roommate’s mouth. His balls can turn to lasagna for all you care right now. You fumble your phone out of your pocket and try to take a decent pic of your breath leaving you. Karkat calls you in after two minutes of failed attempts.

Everyone is gathered on the living room floor when you walk in. They’re sitting on a menagerie of seats– from the floor to giant beanbag chairs to each other – laughing their asses off as Jade nearly yells to be heard over them, waving her hands dramatically. You know she tells good stories, some of the only times you’ve truly laughed have been while listening to some of her anecdotes.

Their laughter dies down enough to welcome the two of you when you walk in, but it’s started again before you even sit down. Karkat snags an empty bean bag and gestures for you to sit next to him. This thing is absolutely huge, you could fit a third person on here, easy. Maybe a fourth.

When Jade is done with her story, the two of you are properly greeted. Karkat gets general hellos, teases about his silly sweater (you think it’s cute). You get a little more good natured harassment.

“Nice to SEE you in some presentable clothes, Strider,” Terezi cackles from her place sprawled across Gamzee’s lap. You wonder if they’re a thing. The thought makes you happy, if only for selfish reasons.

“You can’t SEE me at all,” you quip back, putting the same stress on the operative word.

She just laughs louder.

“I like those rockin’ shades though!” John pipes up. He’s sharing a bean bag with Rose. You snap and make a finger gun at him with a small smirk.

“The operative word in there being ‘sun’ of course,” Rose points out, “Which you’ll find set three hours ago.”

“Hey man, you’ve seen my eyes. Hella sensitive to light.”

“We could always dim them, if you prefer,” she offers, moving her arms to push herself up and looking at you for the go ahead.

You wave your hand in dismissal. “Nah it’s cool. I’ll leave 'em on.”

She settles back into her seat. “Whatever you prefer.”


	12. A Positive First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drunk adults play truth or dare

It’s ten o'clock at night, and everyone who drinks is fucking smashed. Among the sober are Jade, Karkat, and yourself. You would get drunk with the rest of them, but this whole affair is somehow so much funnier when you can observe unintoxicated.

Someone suggested the seven of you should play some shitty party games, and when Karkat objected you told him it was for the ironies, so he piped down and sulked along. Fifteen minutes into a game of truth or dare with a drunk as hell group whose ages range from twenty two to seventeen, you know you’ve made the right decision.

“Strider!” Terezi yells. She levels her pointing hand closer to Karkat than to you. No one corrects her. You don’t think anyone else can even tell.

“Yes.”

“Truth ‘r dare, my son?!” she bellows.

“Girl who do you think you’re talking to?”

She retracts her hand and taps her chin instead. “I dare you… to… give a lap dance to anyone in the room!” she finally decides.

You repress a shudder. Play it off. “I do that every night, come on, TZ, dare me.”

She huffs and crosses her arms. She is still in Gamzee’s lap, but he’s off in some other world. He plays with her hair and hums to himself. “Choose another option.”

“Truth?”

She makes a loud sound like a buzzer.

“That’s the only other option!” Karkat huffs loudly to be heard. “Unless he chooses or.”

“Choose or!” Jade shouts.

“Or,” you say to Terezi.

She makes her buzzer sound again.

You laugh. “What do you want me to do, Rezi?”

“Somebody else pick! Lap dance or nothing!”

“I will pick,” Rose decides. You turn your attention to her. “David, would you like the truthing or the daring?”

You can’t help the smile on your lips. This is way too fucking funny. “Truthing isn’t a word, _Rosalyn_.” She wants to play the full name game? You can play the full name game. She sticks her tongue out at you. “You pick whatever.”

She nods curtly. “You will have the truthing.” Everyone snickers but allows her to go on. “This is a very childish game we are playing, David, so I will ask you a very childish truth. But since we are playing a grown up version of this game – .”

“What makes it the grown up version?” John demands.

“The fact that we are grown ups. Shut up. I will be asking you the grown up version of our af – aforemensiun – aforementioned question.”

You spread your hands. “Ask away, Rosalyn.”

“Who was your first kiss?” she asks, point blank.

Oh. Well. Shit. Avoid the question, they’re drunk, they’ll forget about it in seconds. “What question is this the grown up version of?” you ask.

“Who do you like, of course.”

You nod solemnly. “Of course.”

“I still don’t see how being adults makes this the adult version,” John grumbles.

“You’re not an adult,” Terezi says offhandedly.

“I am too! I’m eighteen!”

“Yeah but _I’m_ a _real_ adult,” she gloats, leaning toward him.

“Twenty one doesn’t make you more of an adult!”

“Yes it does!”

“These people are idiots,” Karkat mumbles beside you. You quietly agree. “So who was your first kiss?” he asks while the rest of them launch into an argument about what defines a real adult.

You swallow a little. “Doesn’t matter really.”

He elbows you a little, a small smile on his face. “Matters to me.”

A sigh escapes your lips. It’s just Karkat, you can tell him. “I’ve never kissed anyone,” you admit. You think of Aradia and Fef and add, “Not on the lips.”

He stares at you for a second.

“What.”

“Nothing I just… Figured you would have.”

Your face hardens automatically. “Why? Because I’m a prostitute?”

His eyes widen and he shakes his head. “No no! Just because you flirt so much with everyone.”

You open your mouth to reply, but Terezi cuts you off, yelling loudly. “STRIDER’S NEVER KISSED ANYONE, STRIDER’S NEVER KISSED ANYONE!” she chants.

“What?!” John squawks. “You’re seventeen! Man I was mackin’ all over people at like, fifteen! Son by the time I was seventeen I was – ”

“John! Please spare us the details of your early sex life,” Rose begs, leaning on his arm.

“You were a bit of a motherfuckin’ whore, brother,” Gamzee mumbles around the beer can halfway down his throat.

“Still are,” Terezi adds with a snicker.

John grumbles at them for a few moments but eventually falls silent.

“You avoided the first dare and the first truth!” Jade accuses. “It’s time for the second dare!!”

“Man the motherfucker don’t wanna open up, let’s just move on.”

“Hell no!” Jade throws an arm in the air with her exclamation and nearly spills the grape soda in her hand. Then she points it at you and continues. “He will be subjected to this middle school game if it’s the last thing I do, dammit!”

You roll your eyes. “Whatever.”

“You get dare. You don’t get a choice.” Jade takes a sip of her soda and grins evilly at you. “Everyone knows your dare. Or, maybe not,” she adds with a glance around at your inebriated friends. Rose shrugs. “I dare you to kiss anyone in the room, on the lips, for three seconds.” She sits back, satisfied with herself. John whoops.

Oh.

That was…

Expected, if you’re being honest. The choice is obvious anyway, isn’t it? Not be a complete sap, but Karkat is the only one who’s ever made you feel anything. You’re just numb, all the time, except when you’re with him. That’s the only time you’re capable of feeling, well, it’s time to stop monologuing. How hard can kissing be?

You lean over and press your lips to Karkat’s.


	13. A New Perspective

Kissing, as it turns out, is a very fun and easy thing to do.

After you pulled back from your kiss with Karkat, he surprised everyone by staring at you for a few seconds before diving back in. The squeak you let out was more than a little undignified. Blushing and smiling, the two of you had settled back into your spots and loudly defended yourselves against your drunk spectators. They’d dropped it after a few minutes and moved on, and it was forgotten.

By the time your friends are winding down, it’s three in the morning. Far too late for anyone to haul their drunk asses home. You and Karkat head off in search of anything you can sleep on/in – air mattresses, pillows, blankets, tee shirts, sweatpants, hoodies… You carry everything you can back to the living room.

Blowing up the air mattress is a task you leave to John. Inebriated as he is, he insists that if he blows it up, he gets to sleep on it. Who are you to question that kind of authority? He hauls it to a corner of the room and gets to work, Rose following with amused curiosity. Terezi instantly flops onto their abandoned bean bag.

Karkat decides he’s going to do his best to curl up on the bean bag the two of you have been sitting on, and in his brash, evasive way he invites you to share it with him. His ears are pink and he doesn’t look at you, and you cut him off mid ramble with a smoothly stated, “Snore even once and the carpet is becoming your new best friend.” He starts for a moment before looking up and catching the smirk on your face.

Everyone changes right in the room. You’re not at all surprised, they're drunk and have no boundaries to begin with. Terezi whips off her shirt and hurls it across the room, then flops onto her back in her jeans and bra and is snoring in two minutes. Gamzee, already wearing pajamas, just lays down beside her and passes out in a similar fashion. John is already not wearing pants because of a dare to go without them for the rest of the night, so he just swaps his shirt out for one of the t shirts you and Karkat brought out and wishes you all a ‘good nugget.’ Rose swaps her leggings for sweatpants and leaves her sweatshirt, shoving John over to make room on the air mattress. Jade fell asleep an hour ago, claiming the couch across the room from John and Rose.

With the lights turned off, you face Karkat in the near complete darkness. You don’t usually go to bed for another hour, but your eyelids are drooping. Karkat whispers a soft goodnight, then to your surprise, leans forward and pecks you lightly on the lips. You’re asleep before you can return the sentiment.

* * *

 

You wake up slowly the next morning. You hear someone snoring, most likely John, try to ignore it and go back to sleep. You curl up tighter around whatever you’re holding, squeeze your eyes shut, pray for dreams. Someone shifts, and you’re pretty much fully awake. You let out a soft sigh and open one eye a crack.

There’s a mop of black hair obstructing your view, shifting a little with the rise and fall of his breaths. Okay. Spooning is apparently a thing you are doing. You’re cool with this, you guess. Another first. You close your eyes and shift your arm a little around Karkat’s waist and he hums a small noise, one hand touching your arm. “Strider?” he mumbles.

You don’t speak. Do you pretend to still be asleep? Do you own this cuddle?

“Dave?”

You grunt a little, cracking your eyes open again. “Hey,” you say, but it turns out more like, “Hh.”

“Morning.”

“G'mornin’.”

Karkat’s fingers lace through your own and lift your hand to his lips. They brush absently along the back, his lips soft on your skin, and you suddenly find it difficult to breathe. Kissing is another thing that is now happening, you guess. You squeeze his hand, partly out of nervousness, partly to acknowledge him back.

John’s snoring hitches, then he coughs once, lightly, then keeps coughing. He coughs himself awake and Karkat laughs at him. Rose sits up beside him, a look of annoyance on her face. “Dammit, John,” she grumbles. “Wake us all up, why don’t you?”

“Sorry,” he huffs.

Terezi sits up. “At least I don’t have to worry about the sun being too bright,” she mumbles.

“Speak for yourself,” Gamzee groans.

Jade pulls her sweatshirt over her head and you hear a muffled groan.

“You didn’t drink anything,” Karkat points out.

“I don’t caaaare. It’s too early.”

“Quit whinin’,” John mumbles, getting slowly to his feet. “Rose. Food. Assist.” She stands as well and smooths down her hair, then leads him off to the kitchen.

“Heeey look at the cute motherfuckers over here,” Gamzee smiles. You look over and realize he’s talking about you and Karkat. You quell the urge to squeak and roll away, shaking your hand free from Karkat’s for a second to flash him a peace sign. Your hand returns to Karkat’s and he instantly laces your fingers together again.

“WE’VE GOT CEREAL, KIDS,” John hollers from the kitchen. Jade falls off the couch and books it out of the room.

* * *

 

Kissing, you have decided, is the best thing ever. It also seems to be a common thing in this group. Everyone else is going to stay another day, but you have work tonight and Karkat has homework to do, so you head home around four pm. Terezi and Gamzee kiss Karkat on the hair and he blushes a little but kisses Terezi’s cheek, then scuttles away before Gamzee can get his hands on him again. You hug Rose and she pecks your cheek, so you do it back, and Jade does the same thing. John is asleep again, but he rouses himself enough lift an arm in a wave.

You and Karkat walk down Rose’s extremely long private drive, Karkat’s hand tucked into the crook of your elbow, his scarf pulled up over his nose. The two of you recount tales of last night and you take pictures of the snow on the trees and Karkat complains that he’s cold and tugs you along. You hail a cab when you get to a busier street, and finally relax in the backseat.

Before you leave for work, Karkat pulls you closer by the shoulder and pecks you on the lips. You grin and peck him back, then leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one to three more chapters, four max!


End file.
